For the Best (14 page)

“Lack of motivation.”

“That won’t cut it.”

“I guess I am not taking a direct route to a
career, I might have to break a few rules to find my path to
billions,” I teased.

“What would be your dream?” he asked.

“The same as everyone else. Autonomous, with
lots of free time or vacation days, and creativity.”

He laughed. “That isn’t everyone’s.”

“If it was the world would be a happier
place.”

“Seriously, what do you want to do?”

“Make life simpler, surround myself with
dogs, plan travel adventures, watch good movies, read great books,
listen to my favorite bands, eat and drink delicious food.”

“You are killing me.” He sighed in
exasperation.

“Tanner, I’m always going to be a girl who
gets by, who can make it on her own. I’m not afraid to try and
fail. Honestly, I’d like to start my own business. The time to take
risks is when you’re young and you have no responsibilities.” I
pointed at the sign on the door of the restaurant. “See how this
place closes in the winter. I’d like to run some place that I could
take off for a month every summer.”

“Maybe.” He seemed unsure, of what I
couldn’t tell. He stared off to the west contemplating. The Montana
sky stretched in the sun streaked blues. The air was so clean and
thin I imagined it felt like the oxygen bar hits that were all the
rage in LA.

“Are you finished career counseling a
slacker like me because that hike is calling my name?” I slipped
one leg off the picnic bench at the same time as he did causing our
limbs to tangle. He stood and helped me up. With an intimacy I
tried to ignore he led me with his hand on the small of my
back.

At St. Mary’s Falls, my back was cold
pressed against the concrete buttress of the bridge. Shade covered
me up to mid-thigh where the sun slanted from the road above. The
paved trail was thick with tourists sporting t-shirts proclaiming
allegiance to states, teams, and previous vacation spots. Tanner
was further away lying on a stone ledge like a cat lapping up the
summer warmth. I didn’t need to look up from my book to confirm his
eyes were riveted on me.

Batteries from a camera rolled toward me. A
frazzled mother scurried after them. Stopping their descent with my
foot I bent and retrieved, handing them to her, smiling without
comment as she said, “Can’t miss this one. It’s the most
photographed waterfall in the park.”

True, the view was excellent, but the
popularity had less to do with the falls and more to do with the
proximity to the road. Dashboard road trippers abounded in the park
and they took as many photos from inside their cars as they did
outside. Quick pull offs were convenient for day trekkers just
passing through. Another falls was close by at the foot of a
hanging valley, tall and narrow.

I looked at Tanner, he at me. Curiously, I
wondered at his thoughts.

Tanner

She breezed in wafting of hazelnut syrup and
something else I couldn’t identify. “Come into my room. I need
you.” She bent over my supine form, her long hair canopying my
face.

“For what?” I asked resting the
Sports
Illustrated
I’d bummed off a passenger across my chest.

“A deterrent. If you are with me, she won’t
be able to say she needs some privacy because she’ll think I need
it more.”

I smirked, not meaning to. “Why would she
think that?”

She blushed. “Because I told her we
did.”

“Why?” I goaded her entertained by her
discomfort.

“Because if she touches you, I’ll have to
douse your dick in bleach.” She harshly grabbed my arm and pulled
me upright while I laughed.

“I would never do that.”

I let her lead me by the forearm. She
dragged me in and pushed me onto her bed, shoving my magazine back
into my hands. Claiming her pillow I went back to my previous state
of reading.

She bunched up her down jacket for a
headrest and settled down feet to head. This was familiar. We used
to come together like this. Legs bent at knees usually mine between
hers.

I finished my magazine. She was as usual
captivated by a book. A pocket calendar rested on her nightstand.
Nosily, I picked it up and thumbed through the months I’d missed
her.

“Can I help you?” She peered over the top of
her novel.

“What does the P stand for?”

“The day each month I get my period.”

“Why are you marking it? You never did
before.”

“Cause nothing sucks more than getting
caught out without supplies.” She knocked her knee into mine on
purpose. I snooped more. “What are you looking for?”

“Hidden codes.”

She sat up straddling my one leg, which now
brushed her breasts. She looked pissed. “I don’t do that shit.”

“What shit?”

“Put little hearts on the dates I had sex.”
Her expression said I could hurt you if I wanted.

“So what do you do?”

“Shut up.” She settled back again,
dismissive.

“You never used to do the P thing,” I
commented not letting it rest.

“Because I wanted your baby,” she said
sarcastically flipping her page.

“And now?”

“I know I can’t have it.”

This time I sat up. “I need to confess
something.”

She scrunched up her face in exasperation.
“No, you don’t. I don’t want to hear your confessions.” She covered
her ears with her hands.

I pulled them off and held them in mine. “It
wasn’t you back then it was me. I was juicing.”

“Huh?” She sat up, pressing our bodies
closer.

“Steroids. They cause temporary
infertility.”

“How long did you take them?” she asked
totally caught off guard.

“The whole time you were trying to get
pregnant.”

She nodded, looking lost and
uncommunicative. She got up, turned her book open spine down on the
bed and left. I knew not to follow her.

Hanna

I could feel his eyes on me. Felt his
presence. The press of finely ground granules for cappuccino
infiltrated my nostrils. I didn’t turn around. It was still dark
outside. The store was open but empty of customers.

“Where did you sleep last night?”

I shrugged not trusting myself to speak. I’d
slept in the car under a moonless sky.

“I’m sorry. Sorry for everything.”

Another sorry, after waiting so long to hear
his apologies the words no longer had meaning. I steamed the milk
almost drowning his voice in the whirring froth maker. After adding
the white chocolate syrup to my espresso, I layered the dairy,
dousing it in whip cream, topping in cocoa dust. I took a sip not
caring that I burnt my tongue. His hand startled me when he palmed
the back of my head.

“I would take it all back if only I could,”
he said.

“I’m glad you didn’t. What would I have done
with a baby? It was wrong of me to put you in that position.”

He stroked my hair, reminding me of when I
would pet one of the timid dogs at the shelter. “What else can I
do?”

“Stop doing things that need apologies.” I
turned and hugged him tightly. We stayed connected until I heard
voices coming. “Go back to bed. You’ve still got a few hours till
your shift.”

I shooed him off wondering if I’d ever
discover all his betrayals.

Tanner

Although I liked my roommate, Glade was an
opportunistic player. He was always trying to take Hanna off alone
somewhere, inviting her on hikes, moonlit drives, and dinners.

She was not in the game from my perspective.
Every time he offered, she cajoled me into accompanying. It didn’t
take much coercion for me to chaperone.

This was how I found myself on a cold
evening a few hours before sunset after one of the most brutal
afternoon storms of the summer season. A damp chill hung in the air
and Hanna was not in one of her better moods.

The creek we crossed was slippery. Rocks and
steep cliffs prevented crossing switchbacks. Glade outpaced us and
we lost sight of him. Gingerly we ran past a mountain goat with one
antler hanging precariously from a bloody stump on his head.

“I know they lose those naturally but that
looks painful. He looked old and crotchety.”

I laughed. “Yeah. Glade probably took the
poor animal’s other antler for his collection.”

Patches of ground were muddy, rutted with
significant damage from the torrential downpour. I couldn’t locate
where the trail started and stopped. She was sliding and I steadied
her by the elbow. Ahead of the damaged area was no better. I saw
the posting of the trailhead warning that between the lake and
elbow it was steep and narrow, not recommended for passage. I
didn’t want to be the first to back out.

We both stopped and leaned against the
nearest tree. The oddest thing happened. Her cell must have come
into range of a tower. A strange ring tone erupted startling us and
the tranquil scene. She looked down at the screen and pressed a
button silencing the call and sending whoever to voice mail in one
fall sweep.

“Where is he?” Hanna asked irritably.

“Up ahead. We’ve been going slowly.”

“He could have waited.” She didn’t hide her
agitated tone.

“Hey!” Glade called in the distance and
started towards us. “Aren’t you guys coming?”

“The conditions aren’t ideal for hiking,”
Hanna yelled. “I’m turning back.”

I looked towards Glade and shrugged. “I’m
going back with her dude.”

He came up to walk beside me while Hanna
trekked ahead. “I give up.”

I laughed. “On what?”

“Her.”

Hanna

Ansel, who I’d written off when I left
California, kept calling routinely. Days and hours varied, he never
left a message. When I was in the park boundaries, the calls
couldn’t reach me. Outside that area, I would see his contact
information and silence the call.

I don’t know why it mattered to him that I
didn’t want to be friends. We had an odd relationship from the get
go, almost that of a therapist and patient. We altered roles many
times. When I left, I decided he was a chapter I would close, not a
long term character in my book of life. I kept thinking of one of
our talks and what he would say about Tanner and me here…now.

We were at a coffee shop, sipping
cappuccinos.

“That girl over there.” Ansel motioned to a
fresh faced girl maybe fifteen. “Think that’s her dad?”

I took in the guy with the graying temples,
his hand placed on her upper thigh. “If so then it’s incestuous.
Either way the old guy is a perv.”

The conversation grew stranger. “The last
girl I slept with was once a girlfriend, although not current. I
picked her up on a rainy night outside a club on Sunset Strip.
She’d called me crying, playing on old weaknesses begging for a
rescue.”

“When was that?” I don’t know why I
asked.

He scrunched up his face. “Eight months at
least.”

“Really?”

He leaned back and looked me dead on. “Why
would I lie?”

I shrugged.

“What about you?” he asked.

Tanner surfaced in my memories. Suddenly, I
didn’t want to think of where he might be at that moment, who he
was with. “May,” I answered.

He nodded.

“How come?”

“How come what?” he asked.

“The abstinence,” I clarified.

“That was how long it had been since I took
my last drink.”

I didn’t understand. “What does abstaining
from sex have to do with staying sober?”

He closed his eyes before he answered.
Usually I hated that, because lies were easier without eye contact
but I didn’t think he would lie. “Because of the lack of
inhibitions.”

“I thought that was only true for
females.”

He shrugged. “I’m shy what can I say.”

“You’re full of shit.”

He laughed. “How come for you?”

“I’m saving myself.”

Full of sarcasm he replied, “Right.”

“Not saving myself that way. Literally
saving myself.”

“Interesting… go on.”

“Saving myself from bitterness, unhappiness,
disinterest, betrayals…”

“Basically all the pitfalls of falling in
love.”

“You got it.”

“Then I’m saving you too.”

Tanner

Time passed. We sat on a bluff of outcropped
rock called Sun Point overlooking St. Mary’s Lake. It was late on a
workday. The sun was setting in the colors of purples that never
quite captured in photos.

“You never talk about college. What is it
like?” she asked.

“Sometimes I feel like I don’t belong,” I
answered.

“You belong everywhere. Fitting in was never
your problem.”

“Maybe it was. Maybe being insecure put me
on the path of destruction.”

She studied me. “I’m kind of surprised you
didn’t join a frat. I thought you would.”

I shook my head. “No, but Didge pledged.” I
watched her grimace at the mention of his name before I continued.
“I went to a few rush parties but to me it was more of high school
and I felt beyond it.”

“Intellectually?” she teased.

“I was never very deep.”

She laughed. “Few are. Quoters of
philosophers, probing characters of existentialism - most are fakes
and flakes. No thought is original. Everything hasn’t been thought
of before.”

“I’m jealous you know?”

“Of what?”

“This year you took just to experience
life.”

“Huh, I never thought of it that
way…experiencing life. Isn’t that what every day is?”

“Well, yes and no. I mean I spent two
semesters with my head stuck in textbooks and trying to absorb
lectures from mostly boring professors.”

“And you think I…what?” The smile she wore
did not reach her eyes.

“Had fun.”